Roads to Recovery
by shiiki
Summary: Nico takes Will to an unusual place, to meet an unusual person. Maybe, just maybe, they can find a way to help another broken soul.


**A/N:** What's up, everyone? Time for your mid-week one-shot. I haven't got that many more of these (my writing is stalling, which is probably a combination of doing a massive volume in the last three months already, and a sudden project sprint plus prep for upcoming conferences, and the four papers that need to be revised and another two that need to get written ... okay, okay, enough about my crazy life). Enjoy this one for now!

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 **Roads to Recovery**

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Will was used to his boyfriend being withdrawn.

After dating him for two months, he'd learnt three main things about Nico di Angelo. One, he wasn't great at communicating. Will didn't know if it was from spending too much time with the dead, or just keeping too many secrets for too long, but Nico hardly ever volunteered information about himself. (That was okay, though. Will had plenty of experience coaxing information out of patients; he knew how to ask the right questions.)

Two, he acted like a 1940s debutante when it came to initiating romance—which was to say, he hardly ever made the first move. (This was fine by Will; he had no problem being the romantic one, and Nico seemed to appreciate him taking the lead.)

Three, he didn't like to stay in one place, which meant he occasionally ran off, sometimes without notice (see point number one). Will tried not to take offence at this. It was never because of _him_ that Nico decided to take an impromptu trip to Camp Jupiter, or the Underworld, or wherever he went when he left camp. As long as Nico didn't overtax himself with the shadow-travel, Will could deal with it.

All the same, Will was having a hard time reconciling Nico's latest disappearance. It was just after Will had brought him home to meet his mom. At first, things had been pretty normal. Nico had been adorably shy and polite around Naomi Solace. He seemed to enjoy the sandwiches she made them for lunch, although he'd gotten that little furrow in his forehead, like it brought up a sad memory. But when Will's absent-minded mother had forgotten about the cookies she'd put in the oven and brought them out all charred, Nico had jumped like he'd been stuck with a needle. He'd gone very quiet after that, and when Will woke up this morning, Nico was gone.

Did he really hate burnt cookies that much?

When Nico finally reappeared on Will's front step hours later, acting more jittery than a kid on his first date, Will was torn between relief and the desire to throttle his boyfriend for making him worry.

What was going on? Nico hadn't even been this nervous on their _actual_ first date. He wasn't even bothering to hide it behind his scary son-of-Hades persona (which he always attempted whenever he got uncomfortable). He kept chewing on his lip, his fingers fiddling incessantly with the skull ring on his left hand. Will wasn't sure Nico even noticed he was doing it.

Finally, Nico asked, 'Will you come somewhere with me?'

'Uh, sure. Where to?'

Nico didn't answer. He simply held out his hand. Even more mystified by this rare initiation of contact, Will took it. Nico pulled him towards the back of the house, where the late afternoon shadows grew long.

'Wait.' Will started to pull back. 'We're not—?'

It was too late. Nico had already reached the shadows. There was a rush of cold wind, and Will found himself being dragged into a howling, pitch-black tunnel at teeth-chattering speed.

The darkness spat them out onto a wild, overgrown field at the base of a hill. Piney woods bordered the other edge. A breeze whistled through, rustling leaves and grass, but there was no other creature, human or otherwise, in sight.

'Er.' Will rubbed his shoulders, trying to inject some warmth back into his body. Shadow-travel was definitely _not_ his preferred mode of transportation. 'You didn't bring me all the way here to make out, did you?'

'Tempting, but no.' Nico didn't quite meet Will's eyes. 'It's—' He sighed. 'I don't know how you're going to feel about this, but there's someone I hoped you could, er, meet.'

Will raised an eyebrow.

'It's just over the hill,' said Nico, and started out towards it.

Will wondered why Nico hadn't just shadow-travelled them closer, but he supposed his boyfriend had his reasons. He hurried to catch up.

The top of the house appeared when they were halfway up the hill, a red-tiled Victorian roof slanting up like an elegant staircase towards the blue sky. The rest came into view the further they climbed: cream walls with Virginia creepers winding up around glass windows that were nearly obscured by streaks of dirt; a messy garden surrounded by a low picket fence that might once have been white, but was now so covered with moss and lichen that it looked as alive as the plants in the overgrown garden.

It didn't look like a house that was currently inhabited.

In fact, the whole place reminded Will of the fairytale castles in children's storybooks, the kind where a princess slept inside, trapped in time, waiting for a prince to break the spell. It had that stagnant, ageless quality to it.

A bit like Nico himself—a kid who had been popped out of time. Will's mind tried to connect him to this place, searching for the reason Nico had brought him here: This was where he'd used to live. This was an offshoot of the infamous Lotus Casino. There was someone else inside, trapped from the 1940s.

None of those explanations seemed quite right.

Nico nudged open the rusty front gate. The lawn looked like it hadn't been mown for decades. Grass grew haphazardly over the stone path leading up to the front door. Will wouldn't even have known the path was there if it hadn't been for the double row of mouldy beanbag toys lining it. Some of the knitted figures had their limbs gnawed off, or their button eyes pecked away, but they were distinctly little stuffed monsters: a hydra (ironically one of the few with all its heads intact), a Gorgon, a couple of dragons, and other assorted animals.

He followed Nico to the front door, which was a bright turquoise that clashed with the venerable elegance of the rest of the house. Will's eyes were drawn first to the Greek letters printed on it— _captain of the castle,_ his mind translated for him—then the English translation above: _CASTELLAN._ The name rang a bell in his head, but he couldn't quite put his finger on where he'd heard it before.

Nico turned to him, twisting his skull ring around his finger. 'Look, the person who lives here …'

'They're not, er, ghosts or something, are they?' Will glanced around the neglected yard. He probably shouldn't be surprised if the house _was_ haunted.

'No. She's just … strange. I met her a year or so ago. Before Percy … um, well, I came here with Percy.'

Will raised his eyebrows, intrigued now. Nico rarely spoke of his previous crush. Will never really understood why it made him so embarrassed. After all, who _hadn't_ had a crush on the captivating son of Poseidon? He sometimes wondered if Nico still harboured lingering feelings for Percy Jackson, though after several months of dating, he was fairly certain Nico was happy with him now.

They rang the doorbell. A moment later, the door creaked open.

The woman who stood on the threshold looked about sixty, with snow-white hair that grew in spiky patches, as if bits of it had been singed off. Over her checkered dress, she wore a sky-blue apron that was covered in ashy stains. Its edges were frayed and blackened. What stood out to Will was the way the air hummed around her head, like a bubble of electricity that encased her mind and gave her eyes an unearthly glow. It reminded him of Rachel Dare, the camp Oracle. Except Rachel only glowed like this when she had a prophecy coming on. This woman was constantly surrounded by her eerie aura.

A bright, hopeful smile lit up the woman's face when she saw Nico.

'Luke?'

'No, ma'am, it's me, Nico. Do you remember?'

Her face creased in confusion. A shadow passed over her eyes, dimming their strange glow. 'Nico. Yes, you're the …'

Then her gaze landed on Will.

'I've brought someone to see you,' Nico began.

'Luke!' Without warning, she engulfed Will in an enormous hug. 'Oh, my boy, they told me—your fate—but I told them you'd come home. I told them you'd be all right.'

Will nearly choked. Her apron smelt of burnt cookies. And who was Luke? The only Luke he'd ever known was …

Oh. _Oh._

The woman finally released him and ushered him into the house. She marched them through halls of bronze and mirrors—Will barely had time to marvel at all the reflective surfaces she'd managed to squeeze onto the walls—and into a kitchen where the burnt smell was overpoweringly strong.

'I made your favourite cookies, Luke! Now sit down and I'll make you a sandwich.' She hummed as she turned away, sweeping a stack of fuzzy sandwiches into an open trash bin and pulling bread and peanut butter onto the kitchen counter.

'Her name is May Castellan,' Nico said quietly. 'She's—she _was_ Luke's mom.'

Luke. Will remembered the dashing Hermes counsellor now. He'd been the golden boy before Percy. Half the camp had harboured secret crushes on him. Will had even gone through a (very brief) phase where he'd kept a polaroid of the handsome head counsellor in his medicine pouch.

It had ended as soon as Luke had skipped out on camp and turned traitor.

The last he'd seen of Luke had been a year ago, in the ravaged streets of Manhattan. He'd been pressing forward through their defences, eyes blazing gold as he advanced relentlessly towards Olympus.

And after that, three wrinkled crones had borne his shrouded body away from Olympus.

Will had never really found out what had happened in the Olympian palace. The only three people who had been there—Percy, Annabeth, and Grover—never spoke of it.

How had Nico gotten involved? Will hadn't even realised that Nico had _known_ Luke. By the time he'd arrived at camp, Luke had been long gone.

'She tried to host the Oracle of Delphi, long ago,' Nico said, still explaining May Castellan. 'But my dad cursed the position so when she tried, it—'

'Destroyed her,' Will murmured. He didn't need Nico's explanation to know that her mind was damaged.

May Castellan finished slathering peanut butter on bread and turned to them with a pair of enormous cookie cutters. One was shaped like a dragon, the other a three-headed hydra.

'Which shape do you want? I know you love your monster sandwiches, Luke.'

She was looking straight at Will. He realised with a jolt that he must look somewhat like her deceased son.

In her fractured mind, she probably _believed_ he was her lost son.

A wave of pity rushed over him. He could only imagine his own mother's reaction if he'd died during the war. Or the mothers of all his friends who _had_ fallen. Lee, Michael, Silena …

'I like the dragon, Mom,' he said.

'I knew you would!' She beamed and turned back to the counter to carve up the sandwiches.

Nico looked at him in surprise. Will shrugged.

'How did you find out about her?'

'The year before the war—the Titan one, that is—I ran away from camp.'

'Yeah, I remember.'

'Well, I ended up in the Labyrinth. It's a long story, but Percy and the others found me, and we ran into Luke. I sensed something strange about him, something Underworldly. So I investigated, and it led me here, to her. He'd come here looking for her blessing, to prepare his body for Kronos to take over.'

'Was that when she got cursed?'

'No, that was before. She was like this since Luke was a baby.'

Will imagined Luke asking his mother for permission to become the most evil being of all time. It gave him a chill down his spine. Had poor May even understood what she'd given her blessing for?

'Percy and I came here to prepare him before the Battle of Manhattan. That was the first time I really met her. It kind of freaked me out. But then yesterday … I just felt like I needed to come back. I … don't really know why.'

Everything clicked into place. Why Nico had been so sad after meeting Will's mom. Why the burnt cookies had shocked him.

Why he'd disappeared.

'I do,' Will said. 'You remembered her. Because of the cookies. Why didn't you just tell me?'

'I … I didn't know if you'd be mad. And what if I was wrong, and May was, you know, already dead? I had to check first. I mean, what would you think if I dragged you from your mom's place to go find some dead woman?'

'And you think disappearing was better?'

'I thought I'd be back sooner.'

Will rolled his eyes. 'Nico, I'd rather you just _told_ me stuff, okay? And for the record, even if you need me to help you take care of a dead person, I'm totally fine with it. You think I've never dealt with death before?'

'It creeps everyone out. You know that—everyone avoids the children of Hades.'

Will resisted the urge to rap his knuckles against Nico's obtuse forehead. He'd _told_ Nico time and again that people avoided him because _he_ pushed people away. But his boyfriend was so convinced that it was something inherent inside him that repelled others. A bunch of platitudes and reminders weren't going to fix things so easily. Nico had embraced the lonely, tortured soul identity he'd crafted for himself for so long, loosening his mental grip on it would be harder than breaking his habit of playing with that skull ring.

Instead, Will took his hand. 'You think you're so scary with your Death Boy stuff, but you're really just a big softy inside. You know, I bet you even help little old ladies cross the road and everything.'

To his relief, the light teasing worked. Nico's eyebrows shot up, giving his face a mixed expression of incredulity and indignation, with just the smallest touch of amusement. 'I am not! It's just—she's been waiting, all this time …'

Will grinned and lifted Nico's hand to his lips. 'You want to help her. I think it's sweet.'

Nico's face softened. 'I thought … well, she's kind of like this because of both our dads. It just occurred to me—between the two of us, maybe we could try and reverse it.'

Will brushed a kiss against the back of Nico's hand and let him go. May's back was still turned as she worked over her cookie-cutter sandwiches. He spread his fingers and sent tendrils of healing magic towards her. Music wafted into his head, the way it always did when he called on his powers.

Then his mental hymn halted on a dissonant chord that sent a painful frisson over his skin. Will pulled his hands back with a sharp hiss.

Nico gave him a worried look. 'What happened?'

Will shook his head. 'Her aura—it's all wound up in something dark and sinister. I don't know if I can fix her. Some things just aren't reversible.'

Nico's face fell. 'I guess it was a long shot.'

'But there's more than one way to help someone,' Will said. 'Look.'

May came back to them and placed two plates on the table. She'd made a dragon-shaped peanut butter sandwich for each of them. She opened her mouth to speak, but then her eyes turned inwards and widened in alarm.

'No …' she whispered. Her voice was raspy and pitched several octaves lower. 'Not his fate … I won't let him!' Her fingers closed on Will's shoulder with a grip like steel. 'Must protect him—my boy!'

Nico made to grab her and pull her away, but Will shook his head and placed his hand on her wrist. 'I'm okay, Mom. Look. I'm right here.'

May blinked. Slowly, her fingers uncurled, releasing him. She looked utterly bewildered. 'What was I …' She stared down at the plates. 'Oh yes, your lunch. One for you, and one for your friend! What was his name again?'

'Nico,' Will told her. 'Thanks, Mom.'

'You're such a good boy, Luke,' she murmured. 'Such a good …' Her eyes rolled back into her head, the way Rachel's did after she delivered a prophecy. Will caught her before she could fall to the ground. Nico helped him settle her into a chair, where she promptly began snoring.

'Wow,' said Nico. 'I don't think that's happened before.'

Will picked up his dragon-shaped sandwich. The bread had little white mould spots on it, but it probably would have been good otherwise. He wondered off-hand how May kept herself properly fed. 'We'll have to bring her fresh bread next time.'

'Next time?'

'I'll keep coming here with you,' Will said. 'I don't really know how to work with prophecies and stuff. But maybe if we can ease her from how she sees the world into how it really is now, we can start undoing some of the damage.'

'You'd do that?'

'Sure. We'll find some way to help her. I promise.'

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 **A/N** : The inspiration for this fic came from a tumblr post that I can no longer find or remember the exact details of. But it had something to do with the fact that poor May Castellan is still out there baking her burnt cookies and waiting for her lost son to come home. Which is heartbreaking when you think about it. And so, I guess I just have this thing for bringing broken people together.

Also, I'm guessing that the Greek in TLO on May's door (Διοικητής Φρονρίν) does translate to 'Castellan', or at least the actual English meaning of Luke's surname, though putting the actual Greek into Google translate turns up something like 'commander sturgeon'. Translation is of course not such a precise process! I really ought to just learn the language one day instead of just the alphabet.


End file.
